Saturday Morning Cartoon: Galtar and the Golden Lance

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Galtar and the Golden Lance

Galtar and the Golden Lance is a Hanna Barbera action adventure cartoon about a man and his sword. Yes, it does sound familiar because there were a lot of cartoons about a guy and his sword, but this one is different, this guy’s isn’t a sword–it’s a lance and it splits in half.

The opening is filled with promise of exciting action:

but unfortunately, it was kinda boring.

I had a lot of friends who loved this show, but I could never really get into it. I remember this cartoon being on Sundays and just watching it because there wasn’t anything else on TV. Give me Thundarr over this any day!

Did you like Galtar? Did you know Galtar backwards is Ratlag?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Karate Kid

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Karate Kid

Yep, they made a cartoon. It was on NBC for one season in 1989. It’s based on the hit series of movies, but seemed to have hit just way too late. It centered around Mr. Miyagi, Daniel, and some girl traipsing all over the world looking for pieces of a lost relic.

When I watched this as a kid when I was younger, I always thought that the animation was amazing. Well, like almsot every cartoon in the 80’s the opening animation is good, but not the main show’s animation. I have seen way worse though…

I have a feeling this show wasn’t very popular because it only ran for one season.

If you are a fan of the orignal movies and are sick of watching them, here’s the first episode. The rest are streaming on Netflix and available on iTunes.

Watching this, do you have flashbacks of how cool the movies were? Do you think this is an insult? Why does eveyone in this show say “shvine” instead of “shrine”–are all Japenese people in this show secretly German?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Saturday Morning Cartoon Party?

I was thinking it might be fun to get a couple people together online and watch a Saturday Morning Cartoon together.

I’ll set a date and time and set up a room where we can all watch the same thing and chat. There are some really cool tools out there and seem to be very easy to use.

We can have an online Saturday Morning Cartoon Party!

What do you think? Interested?

[polldaddy poll=5777857]

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Yo Yogi!

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Yo Yogi!

Yep, not your parents’ Yogi Bear, this one was updated just for your generation, because you know, it’s just what the world needed. Yogi didn’t live in Yellowstone Park he lived in Yellowstone Mall. He hung out with security guard Officer Smith and solved crimes with all his other friends, kid versions of Snaggletooth, Huckleberry Hound, Cindy Bear and Boo Boo. The show featured 3D sequences where you would watch with your official Yo Yogi 3D glasses found in Rice Krispies and other Kelloggs’ cereals.

When I watch this I cringe, even as a kid. I don’t know if any of you out there were fans, but I’m sorry–this should not have existed. Half the original voice actors were dead and I bet you the only reason people worked on this was to avoid unemployment.

As good as Hanna-Barbera in the early days, they were just as bad in the later days. Did you watch Yo Yogi? Did you even know about the original Yogi cartoon?

Thanks again Benjamin for the links!

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Galaxy Rangers

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Galaxy Rangers

I didn’t watch this show too often when I was younger, but I do remember that the animation was amazing. Watching again, I can see that my memory wasn’t far off.

This show was animated by TMS, the same studio that brought us other great shows like Mighty Orbots and Bionic Six. Released in 1986, this series ran for only one season but it consisted of 65 episodes. It follows, you guessed it, the Galaxy Rangers. They are an elite force of bionic space cowboys, each with specific abilities.

The series might seem a little weird at first, but it has a series long story arc and “revolutionary computer-generated” graphics.

I’ve only watched a few, but they are all on Hulu right now for free! Check ’em out:

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Dino-Riders

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Dino-Riders

“…ripped a hole in the fabric of time…”

Ha! I wonder how many times I heard that phrase in 80’s cartoons? This show is obviously based on a toyline, but what a toyline! How can you go wrong action figures that ride vehicles attached to dinosaurs that shoots lasers to fight aliens?!

In this show, as soon as the good guys land on the planet they make friends with all the dinosaurs and the bad guys brainwash their dinosaurs–how typical! If I landed on an alien planet filled with Dinosaurs, I would be too worried about getting eaten, but I guess that’s just me…

This show is filled with every voice actor you are familiar with, the animation isn’t bad and the story is laughable. An interesting side note: this might be one of the first times that the dinosaurs are animated not to be “tail draggers”.

Why is it taking so long to clone Dinosaurs?! I want to do some Dino-riding instead of my car for my daily commute! I mean, c’mon, a T-rex has to be street-safe right?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Pandamonium

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Pandamonium

This is definitely one of the strangest and rarest cartoons featured here or anywhere for that matter. The first minute of the intro is spent just describing the backstory. They left out that the Panda’s names were Chesty, Timothy, and sadly Algernon. They could all combine into one panada-thingy called Poppapanda. Like I said really weird.

If I saw this when I was a kid, I don’t remember it at all. My friend reminded me of it when we were in high school and ever since then I can’t forget it even if I tried!

Do you remember Panadamonium?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: A Pup Named Scooby Doo

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: A Pup Named Scooby Doo

This show was fun. It was a cartoonier take on Scooby, complete with great cartoon takes, wacky jokes, and really weird monsters. I also watched this show because it was more like Bugs Bunny and less like Scooby Doo.

Did you watch this as a kid? Did you like it?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: The Wuzzles

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Wuzzles

Created by Michael Eisner, this was the shortest run for a Disney show and actually the first one they did (even though it premiered the same day as Gummi Bears).

This show is hard to watch, but the animation is amazing. For how bad everything else is, the animation is that much better. I’m guessing since it was their first show, they really put a lot of time in training the overseas studio or something, because wow these move great. Strong poses, great spacing and timing, and drawn to be super solid.

I remember liking this as a kid until I laid my little eyes on Gummi Bears. What about you? Are you a Gummi Bear or a Wuzzle?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas

You start to hear the sounds of the morning, the wind rustling the leaves, the chirping of the birds and that’s when you realize what day it is–Saturday! Cartoons! All week long you’ve been starved of cartoons, and now it is your time to feast! You throw off the covers, shove your feet in your slippers and sprint downstairs!

Grab that big bowl of C-3POs, adjust the antennae and plop down on the floor for your weekly dose of animated fun!

This week: Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas

I guess it’s not animated, but muppets will always be a part of my saturday mornings. This one hour special aired on HBO in 1977 and then again in 1980. The dream team of Jim Henson and Paul Williams together again for this amazing special. Kermit narrates the story of little Emmit Otter and his entrance in the Frogtown Hollow talent show.

Here’s just one of the great songs:

This is great if you can find the DVD, you won’t be disappointed. We used to watch this over and over again until it was really blurry. Do you remember this? Did you sing along just now while you were watching?